Unofficial news and tips about Google

January 6, 2009

GrandCentral in Spain?

Spanish news site Expansión reports that Google plans to launch GrandCentral in Spain. GrandCentral is a service acquired by Google in 2007 and its main purpose is to centralize voice communications. "GrandCentral provides an innovative web-based voice communications platform that helps you manage all your phones and phone numbers through one simple interface. You get a single phone number that forwards to all of your phones, giving you one number for life."

Right now, GrandCentral works only in the US and you need to get an invitation to use it, but Spain is the first candidate for GrandCentral's international expansion. Here's a sightly improved automatic translation from Spanish:

"The company wants to offer international calls via the mobile phone and advanced voicemail, separately from the offers of other mobile operators. Google requires that users subscribe to voicemail, a service provided over the Internet. When a mobile user does not answer the call, the voicemail automatically activates. Once you have subscribed to this service, you can also make international calls through the voicemail number. (...) Google wants to avoid the legal hurdles and the investment required to get a carrier license, a model considered inflexible and incompatible with its approach, always based on open standards."

Apparently, voice calls are free, but they're linked to the voicemail service. The more calls you receive, the more you can call other people for free.